Black Walnut for Early York Flinter

I was able to get my hands on a piece of black walnut I would like to use for an Early York Chambers kit. Was this wood used traditionally? I also need help on how to lay out the blank on the stock. Should the grain run from the tang down towards the butt on the wrist, or across the wrist looking at the rifle from the side? Thanks for any help!

While not traditional, (most guns in the PA area were stocked in maple), doesn't mean there weren't any in walnut. They would have been very rare.
Black walnut is mostly seen in Southern guns
For me, I dot really understand your questions on layout. The grain should go with the wrist, not across to prevent breakage.
I hope this helps.

Hi,
Black walnut was used for Pennsylvania rifles but to a much lesser degree than maple. Make sure your walnut blank is dense (heavy). Soft black walnut is miserable wood to work with. Grain should run from the breech to the butt and not across the wrist. However, don't be misled by the obvious "V" shaped marks. They do not indicate direction of the grain just the orientation of the wood relative to the growth rings when cut. You need to look very close at the wood to see the direction of the actual pores in the wood. Rich Pierce offers a good rule of thumb. Look at the end of the blank. If the grain runs vertically up the butt, it was slab sawn and the "V"s up the wrist are normal and fine. If the grain runs across the blank, the wood was quarter sawn or a near center cut and those "V" s at the wrist may be a problem.

dave

Black Walnut was used for a small percentage of early rifles. There are a few examples still in existence.

Ideally, the grain on any stock should run straight through the wrist. The closer to that happening, the better. All Black walnut is not the same. Really good, dense walnut is the exception. I paid almost $300 for a great piece of black walnut for my early York style rifle I made a few years ago.

Beautiful gun Okawbow.

Thanks Bob,
.54 caliber, 48” custom swamped barrel. Copied after a gun carried throughout the War of Independence.

Chuck

Thanks for all of your replies and that is a beautiful rifle okawbow! Could you post a close up of the grain running through the wrist? Thanks! Ed

If it is possible, it is best to have the grain of the wood running parallel with the wrist on the stock.
If the grain is running parallel with the bore it will be weak in the area of the wrist because the boundaries between the grain will be in shear when the gun is being loaded or fired. The sear strength of the boundary layers is always weaker than the strength in the direction of the grain.

An example of a weak grain pattern can be seen on the Tennessee rifle I built from a piece of walnut.


In this guns case, because of the extra long trigger plate and tang on the barrel I was able to install two screws that go down thru the wrist. With the two screws threaded into the trigger plate it basically makes a sandwich with the steel tang and trigger plate being the bread and the wood between them being the filling. You can see the head of the rear tang screw just to the right of the rise to the comb of the stock.
Doing this increases the strength of the wrist tremendously but when all is said and done, I would have much rather had the wood grain running parallel with the wrist.

(Yes, you see the remains of a flintlock pan supporting the percussion drum on the lock. This is a Siler kit flintlock lock and I messed up the pan's bridle so I decided to "update" the lock to a percussion lock for this rifle.
That would explain why the tail of the lock isn't like most Tennessee rifles. "That thar lock were an ol' Pennsylvania lock that were used fer building that thar rifle gun. At's why she's a lookin funny ta ye." )

erhunter said:

Thanks for all of your replies and that is a beautiful rifle okawbow! Could you post a close up of the grain running through the wrist? Thanks! Ed

Click to expand...

Hard to see the grain in this picture, but it runs close to straight along the wrist.

Thanks Zonie and okawbow for your input.

Not sure how you’re using a blank for a Chambers kit.

Jim gives a hundred off or so if you supply your own plank but he must not be doing that if he's worried about layout.

You can always run a 1/2 in Hickory Dowel down through the wrist from the barrel channel and Gorilla glue it in place. The glue expands and fills any voids. This will make the stock nearly as strong as if the grain run was correct and if done well is invisible.
The center line hickory dowel will be much stronger feinforcement than will be the tang or trigger guard in all direction.

Hi Bob, and I was wondering about grain because I want to send a quality and also correct grain pattern for Jim to work with. Thanks!

I am currently working on two walnut stocked rifles - a half-stock and full-stock Hawken styled.

A word of warning especially if you have only worked with Maple (or not at all). Black Walnut can "blow out" particularly with chisels. It machines beautifully with high speed tools (routers, drill presses etc) but put a chisel or very rough wood rasp on it and you are likely to experience a "chunk" that comes out where you didn't want it to - so make sure your chisels are uber-sharp and quickly figure out "which way the wood wants you to chisel" - going in one direction is fine, change directions and you are out with the wood glue replacing a chunk that broke out.

I have made half a dozen rifles with plain maple (the easiest to work with), a few with tiger maple (challenges with the changes between the harder and softer sections), and otherwise have quite a bit of woodworking experience, but I am finding working with a walnut stock particularly challenging - so be careful and work slowly.

Sometimes you get lucky and the grain "shows you" where to orient the wrist

Thank you galamb for your expertise on walnut wood! You have a great picture on how the grain should go through the wrist, if I am correct, from the other members' help in the forum.

Here's one more pic - you can't see the grain on the (board) but you can see that I turned the (pattern - in this case a preworked half stock blank) to get the orientation - yes, lots of the wood will get "wasted", but having the grain run as "horizontal as possible" through the wrist is the best way to ensure durability and longevity of the rifle.